Please stick to the topic of this thread. I shouldn't have to defend myself every other post due to insulting behavior by others. If indeed, you feel that my statemenst are "crap" I'll be more than happy to discuss them with you, but just saying that they are "crap" doesn't make them so.

We can debate the merits of this thread and my assertions as much as you want, but I would respectfully ask that you refrain from mentioning that my ideas are "crap". That is tantamount to saying that I have "crappy" ideas, and as a result am less than you or others who don't have "crappy" ideas.

I can see that you are extremely upset. As an adult, I'm sure you can channel your hostilities into a cohesive post or two that would engage these ideas, their merits or lack thereof, and demonstrate the logic you used to arrive at those conclusions.

Guess what your arrogance has reached new heights, you debate your way, I'll debate my way. You're never having voted for a Republican or Democrat is CRAP. No amount of saying it isn't won't change that either. Your condescending manner will be met for what it is worth, crap. Your so-called sensitivities are useful only as a rhetorical tool and are feigned to make your martyr complex complete.

_________________“I'm not a member of any organized party. I'm a Democrat.”-Will Rogers

Thanks for the link. I think it's a bit premature to claim that Obama has already won the elections in November based on one article from the US news.

What a joke. Are trying to be funny? I did not claim Obama has already won the November election. I just pointed out the amazing fact that he has a sizable lead over McCain in a typically red state, after months of mudslinging from every direction. You however, have been quite bold in your early coronation of John McCain.

I guess I should remind you of the title to your thread:

John McCain Will Become the 44th POTUS

I have been on your case because I've had it with people saying our presidential elections don't matter. That sort of attitude gave us George W. Bush for 8 years, and I will challenge anyone who continues to spout such a cynical, obviously discredited point of view. I could care less about your vote, since you have never participated in the process in any meaningful way, and you obviously never will. However, many people who never post, will read this thread, and those who keep repeating your tired old line that the election doesn't matter have to be challenged.

Your assessment of the many challenges facing Obama or Clinton is true. However, APL is correct. You left out one obstacle, the cynicism of those like you, who spend their time and energy to convince everyone that the election doesn't matter. I believe this election is so important, that we can overcome all of those obstacles, including the one posed by irrelevant cynics.

You might recall I had also stated that this election is very important, not meaningless. Meaningless is a term you use. You use it quite often, almost to the point of making it, well, meaningless. I have stated that this is a key event if you wish to quote something from me.

I understand how you're all hyped up, your patriotic juices are boiling, and you want to make sure that THIS TIME America gets it right. You have but one vote, just like me. But you think that you are going to use your vote for a specific purpose, whereas you feel that I am uselessly throwing my one vote away on meaningless (there's that word again) minutiae. I have many friends just like you. We have grown up together, watched Nixon during his "tricky Dick" years, lamented that Reagan was going to destroy America, and now Bush has all but ruined the country. It definitely looks like the Republicans have done nothing but dig our grave deeper at every occasion.

But, didn't Johnson fake the Gulf of Tonkin attack to launch the US into an unwinnable war?? I remember before we lost Vietnam. I used to strut around thinking, "The US has NEVER lost a war, man. When we get into a fight, it's to win and win only (well, except for the Korean War which we didn't technically lose anyway)." But Johnson is a Democrat. I thought Democrats only come in one flavor, American true blue. Johnson started the war which eventually cuased the death of over 58,000 US soldiers and 2,000,000 Vietnamese.

Ah, but then we have Carter, right?? He was a great president, wasn't he?? Except that the economy went into the tank during his presidency and he started the Soviet/Afghan War. That's right, read Brzezinski. He stated that he pushed for it himself with Carter. And that Democrat is very proud of what he did, even if it eventually created al Qaeda, terrorist training cells, the Taliban and other enjoyable groups. But, but, Carter is a Democrat. He HAS to be good for our country, he's a Democrat. Democrats only do good things, right??

I think that Clinton was perhaps the best president in the White House over the past 40 years. He was very intelligent, kept the corporate giants' palms greased, and found enough scraps for most of the rest of us. He also brought in al Qaeda into the fight in Serbia and had Wesley Clark bomb the smithereens out of obvious civilian targets. That's not a good thing.

I have but one vote. My pledge to our forefathers is to put that vote in the name of the person I feel most qualified to run this country as our forefathers would have wanted. It appears that your vote is to go to whichever Democrat is nominated regardless of their past record or ineptness. I'm sorry that you waste your vote that way. I don't think our forefathers wanted, "Only Democrats should be elected to the office of President." In fact, George Washington was against political parties to begin with. you seem to have missed that point.

They represent a good part of the country. There are a lot of people out there who will vote "against" any Democrat, and there's another good part of the country that will vote "against" any Republican. Evey election, every time, every four years, it never changes. Vote for the "lesser of two evils."

I don't vote against. I don't think our forefathers wanted a system whereby everyone voted "against" some other candidate. They wanted us to choose the best of the bunch, not the least evil of them.

That's why I study ALL the candidates, including Republicans and Democrats. I have made a solemn oath to our forefathers to use MY vote towards the best candidate everytime and NEVER use it to vote for the lesser of two evils. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

You can ride your pompous steed into the night decrying all those who refuse to ALWAYS vote Democrat. There is about the same number who ride their steeds decrying all those who refuse to ALWAYS vote Republican. If you took the time to actually study your history, you'd notice that the present course the US is on, has been followed by both parties alilke. I personally don't like that course. It's hegemonic, far too belligerant, and does not uphold the high ideals our forefathers fought and died for.

You can vote to continue the status quo, the wars, the killings, the blind hatred, all the evils our forefathers warned us against. That's your right. I know you don't want me to have my right to vote because I don't vote for your candidate, but you're kinda stuck because our forefathers gave me that right. At least until you decide to remove it becasue I refuse to vote for your candidate.

As far as I'm concerned, if Americans really awoke from their daydream and really saw what they were doing in the world, we would have had Nader in office in 2000, and no wars in Afghanistan nor Iraq. Can you imagine??? Over 1,000,000 people NOT killed by our intervention and over 4,000 US soldiers would be alive today??

No you can't fathom that. All you see is red state, blue state. Deaths in foreign countries just comes with the territory.

Here is my version of the US. Look at it and how much it differs from your version. I fully believe that our forefathers wanted this version to be the legacy that our country was built on. Funny, but what your party and the other one have given us is very different.

I am happy to see that ya'll believe that voters determine presidents who determine national policies.

As for me, I'll once again go on record stating that the Likud war tribe and central bankers run this country and they want Iran.

Right now the bankers are doing the economic shocks that come before massive transfers of wealth. This is now a science that they have been perfecting since murdering Allende, and his followers, and installing the murderous Pinochet and his murderers.

Banks will not give loans to those who need them. Guaranteed economic contraction with a primary 2008 yield of tens of thousands of homes. You can not buy a home with less than perfect credit AND about a 25% down payment.

I like what Obama says and much of what he has done. I'll try to post his financial backing pretty soon however:

"Obama is best understood as a multi-contractor puppet with hardware from the Ford Foundation and software from the Rockefeller-Trilateral-Brzezinski circles."

"The Obama campaign has thus far been shown to represent: the Ford Foundation, the Trilateral Commission, the New York Council on Foreign Relations, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberger Group, Skull and Bones, the RAND Corporation, the Soros Foundation, the Rockefeller family, and the Friedmanite Chicago School of economic genocide. Obama is the Manchurian candidate groomed and indoctrinated by those financier-controlled groups. As president, Obama would impose a regime of crushing economic austerity and a new set of foreign wars far worse than what has been seen under Bush."

This is an interesting review on Amazon. I spend my time studying our Founding Fathers and I have not read the book. I have read the charge that he is a Brzezinski protege before however. So I'm a bit skeptical.

_________________"If the people allow private banks to control their currency the banks and corporations will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson

I am not of the belief that voters alone dictate the winner and as a consequence, our foreign policy. All we have to do is look at the last two presidential elections to see clearly how the votes are manipulated. That was another one of those reasons that McCain will be the next president.

As for the subprime loan fiasco, this is but another way to separate the haves and the have mores. What the banks and mortgage companies did for years is known as "predatory lending." Notice how the banks and their cohorts are being reimbursed for their practicing of predatory lending, while the individual is left out to dry.

Here's a short skit by two British comedians that pretty much explains the subprime loan fiasco.

All the Greg Palast reports originally broadcast on BBC Television - and the reports they haven't broadcast yet - on the Theft of the Election of 2000. Of 2004. And 2008.

The "Election Files - Theft of 2008" - the film available only on DVD to supporters of the Palast Investigative Fund .... including never-broadcast interviews with fired US prosecutor David Iglesias, with Bobby Kennedy Jr. blowing the whistle on the vote rustlers, and close ups of Karl Rove-bot Tim Griffin, the caging man, in tears. (You don't want to miss that.)Watch Palast get busted by Florida State smokies in Katherine Harris' office and YOU decide if, as Harris says in the film, "American democracy has triumphed again.

He has covered the last two presidential elections and has documented the evidence.

After rereading my post to you above, I noticed that I perhaps went overboard in my criticism. Specifically:

Quote:

No you can't fathom that. All you see is red state, blue state. Deaths in foreign countries just comes with the territory.

Here is my version of the US. Look at it and how much it differs from your version. I fully believe that our forefathers wanted this version to be the legacy that our country was built on. Funny, but what your party and the other one have given us is very different.

It should have read:

Quote:

That's a whole other paradigm that is hard for many Americans to grasp. All you see in the media is red state, blue state. Deaths in foreign countries, as far as the MSM is concerned, just comes with the territory.

Here is my version of the US. Look at it and how much it differs from our current foreign policy. I fully believe that our forefathers wanted this version to be the legacy that our country was built on. Funny, but what Republicrats have given us is very different.

Sorry if my original post was a bit harsh. As you can see, I also get very passionate about this country.

If we get four more years of Bush policies, I believe that I am ready to meet my maker. I have suffered more in the 2000's than in the decades of the 1900's.

_________________"If the people allow private banks to control their currency the banks and corporations will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson

It's always been the same government, just differently named political parties in the White House. If you look back at history, you'll see that the US policy, both domestically and globally, has stayed consistent throughout the whole time.

People like to say, "Democrats are doves not hawks. They don't go to war only the Republicans do." In fact, the term often used by the MSM is "surrender monkeys". Yet in the 20th Century every single war that involved the US occurred when a Democrat was president. All except for the last one.

People like to say, "Republicans are for smaller government and fiscal conservatism." Yet, the Republicans were in charge during every major fiscal crisis in the last century and into this one. Hoover got the Great Depression, Ronald Reagan built the national debt to unimaginable heights, and now Bush is doing even worse.

Most Americans like to pretend that there's a difference between the two parties when in reality they are virtually identical. Through Republican presidencies as well as Democratic ones, we have always spent enormous amounts of money on the military-idustrial complex. There is no difference who's in power. During that same time period, the US has made dozens of illegal incursions into other countries. There is no difference who is in power. We have seem our health care system slowly being destroyed regardless of who is in the White House. We have seen a steady erosion of our educational system, again regardless of who's in the office. We have seen our prison population increase to become the highest in the world with no change between the two parties.

There is virtually no difference between the two, yet people cling to that idea like ravaged dogs to a piece of rancid meat. Under Clinton over 500,000 babies in Iraq died. When asked if that was worth the effort to debilitate Saddam, his UN Ambassador, Madeliene Albright said, "of course." We bombed some parts of the former Yugoslavia into the stone age under Clinton. EVen his general Wesley Clark admitted that.

There is no significant difference between the two.

On top of that, anyone with an agenda that might break us from this mold from hell is always shut out of any debate. Americans tell themselves that only these two parties exist. That's all anyone has for a choice. You are forced to vote for one of these clowns, or risk the wrath from those who buy into the myth. The corporate elite has done a thorough job of brainwashing the general public. Most have become nothing more than mindless zombies regurgitating what they hear on the news and in print. There is virtually no movement to seek a change to this paradigm.

You'd fare just as bad with a Democrat as with a Republican. Notice too how boh Hillary and Barack will NOT pull out of Iraq immediately. In fact, Hillary is all for annihilating Iran. Sometimes she sounds even more belligerant than McCain.

For me its not about reps vs dems. I just can't stand the politics of this administration.

I left the Republican party to protest their politics. I intend to become an independent if and when their shadow is no longer cast over Washington and the world. However, I do not see myself voting republican in the near future because they never fail to focus on lining the pockets of the rich.

Your stat about the Dems starting the wars is skewed. Last I checked Bush Sr was a Republican while in office.

Clinton was also a Republican in Dem clothing.

You can read my posts and find that I often state that the central bankers, the Likud war tribe, and the Pentagon run this country. Rockefeller is the de facto King of America. His tools include the Ford Foundation, Planned Parenthood, CFR, Trilateral Commission, CIA, RAND group, World Bank/IMF, MSM, Bilderberger Group, Illuminati, Freidmanite Chicago school of economic genocide, Kissinger, Cheney, Federal Reserve, Chase Morgan bank, ExxonMobil energy, and layers upon layers of trusts and foundations where layers upon layers of immense wealth are dispersed and applied as desired.

On p. 405 of the paperback, "My Memoirs", he brags about working against the best interests of America for the past thirty years.

Much of the reason I hang on this board is:

It is too small to attract a lot of disinformation agents...whom I detest.

It is united in detesting the politics of the House of Bu%h.

The people here actually think a fair amount.

And....in spite of what you and I have said, each administration does lay a unique footprint upon the politics of the nation.

McCain has already made clear his intentions to keep steering the course laid out over the past several years. I'm also more concerned about his VP choice since his days may be numbered with three previous bouts with cancer.

Modern democrats serve the millionaires.
Modern republicans serve the billionaires.
You must be rich to run for major office. Rich generally take care of rich.

_________________"If the people allow private banks to control their currency the banks and corporations will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson

Yet in the 20th Century every single war that involved the US occurred when a Democrat was president. All except for the last one.

There's nothing skewed about it. I have heard all the various "reasons" why they were only Democrats and of course, EVERYONE reminds me that Gulf War I was Bush, a Republican, the last time they checked. My statement doesn't change.

And read carefully about "starting wars." I didn't say "starting" because that would be wrong as well. We didn't "start" WWI nor WWII. It would be wrong to imply that we did. But if you look closely at the events during those time frames you'll find that Wilson was reelected in 1916 because "he kept the US OUT of the war in Europe." FDR was also more than shady. Everyone now knows that the US military had cracked the Japanese code days before Pearl Harbor but deliberately kept it from the base there to allow maximum damage by the Japanese. Here's another cute little tidbit: The Pacific Fleet of the US has ALWAYS been stationed at San Diego EXCEPT for the period from February, 1941, to Summer, 1944.

Now why would FDR send our defenses halfway to Tokyo when he knows that Japan was in a warlike state?? To move our ENTIRE defensive fleet to a few tropical islands halfway across the Pacific Ocean where it would take days to send them supplies, reinforcements, help of any kind (except by planes with what little they could carry), has got to be one of the most bonehead moves of any commander in chief anywhere UNLESS they wanted to provoke a fight. Back then it probably would have taken Japan 10 months to formulate an attack on Pearl Harbor. February + 10 months = December.

If you look at Hillary, she's ready to blast Iran into Flintstoneland. That will force WWIII. Barack would continue the war and ponder a lot. McCain will just keep the wars going. All three will follow the advice of Israel regardless. None of them will dare step up to the Likud.

Now here are a few opinions from renowned world journalists about the supposed differences between the Republicans and Democrats:

ALI: You’ve been in the Middle East for decades. You’ve seen both Republican and Democratic foreign policy –

FISK: What’s the difference? There’s no difference. Where’s the difference between Clinton and Bush? It’s like people saying Labor government is going to come in Israel and be different than Likud, and it turns out not to be different at all.

ALI: Well, Obama as you know before his run as President, was more partial towards Palestinian rights. But, last month along with Clinton, he wrote a letter strongly condemning Palestinian violence. Many wonder, if he or even Clinton wins, is there going to be any change in policy?

FISK: Here’s the thing that’s going to be different in policy regarding the Middle East in the United States whoever wins the election: it’s utterly irrelevant.

I totally agree with Robert Fisk. He is a seasoned veteran journalist who has covered the Middle East and many other parts of the world for over 30 years. He has not grown up INSIDE the US, rather outside looking in. When I lived in other countries I saw the exact same thing. Outside of the US, the opinions about the two major parties are almost the antithesis of what they are inside the US. If you have never lived outside of the US, I guess it's hard to understand. I know for a fact that I never thought that way until I moved to Europe. In Mexico, they said the same thing.

Both parties are capitalistic, private profit-oriented, anti-labor, anti-government intereference, and pro-market administration. That is not the only style of government in the world. In fact, it's not even the most common.

Internal shake-ups among Sen. John McCain’s campaign aides, unusual structuring choices within his camp and the worry among some Republicans that their presumptive nominee isn’t capitalizing sufficiently on the Democrats’ current chaos are all spelling trouble for Team McCain.

MORE AT THELINK

_________________

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

You remember, of course, that during the summer or fall of last year everyone counted him completely out of the race. The polls had him dead last against all other major contenders and he was not generating any money. Everyone assumed, at that time, that McCain was out of the race altogether.

Your story originates from the New York Times, a paper that's already in his back pocket. Here are some quotes from there:

Quote:

Although Mr. Obama has continued to raise far more money than Mr. McCain, Mr. Bush’s fund-raising machinery has helped keep the Republican Party competitive. The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee, between them, have $11 million more on hand — about $62 million — than the combined cash-on-hand of Mr. Obama and the Democratic National Committee.

Quote:

The ousters of some of the staff members came after Mr. McCain imposed a new policy that active lobbyists would not be allowed to hold paying jobs in the campaign.

btw, the following is a blatant lie:

Quote:

Discussing what Mr. McCain needed to do, Mr. Nelson, another veteran of the Bush 2004 team, said: “Step No. 1 would be finding a compelling message that excited Republicans, and Step No. 2 would be having the ability to turn your voters out. From what I see, in both respects, they have a long way to go, but they have time.”

They've had commercials and sound bites ready for months. EVen the Swiftboad kids have been done for months. McCain is just chilling right now because he can. It's up to the MSM to portray this as an "epic uphill struggle of American Values vs divisive cut-and-run blatant liberal cowardice." McCain has the MSM in his back pocket, so they won't be too hard on him. Barack, on the other hand, has to fight the Republican spin doctors who already have plenty of fodder. His wife saying that she was proud for the first time, his current and former relation with a "wild" Africn-American preacher, the many false urban legends cropping up everywhere that Osama and Obama are somehow related, that Obama is a Muslim, that Obama won't put an American lapel pin on his jacket, that Obama is the famed "from the inside" hit man prophesized in early American speeches which stated that the end will come from within and not without.

Obviously, McCain has not yet dropped out, and he has not conceded defeat. In fact, he is doing exactly what he should be doing, laying low so that no misquotes will come back to haunt him, and watch the Democratic candidates destroy each other. There really is no scare in the Republican camp at this time.

But NYT wouldn't sell as many papers if they wrote instead, "McCain continues status quo and waits for Democrats to destroy each other." It wouldn't stir that very American trait of always being with the underdog.

Sen. John McCain had a message for Elisabeth Bumiller, the venerated New York Times reporter, along with the rest of the media assigned to travel with him the week of July 20. "What do you want, you little jerks?" McCain said to Bumiller and those behind her, as the press surged forward on the "Straight Talk" Boeing 737 on July 21.

This report chronicles some of the changes in John McCain's personality over the last eight years.

_________________

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

The remarks about McCain's meanness sorta crested when word got out he called his wife a bitch and other horrific names. That certainly didn't sit well with the religious right somnambulists. But they've already been through that, so when it's brought up again during the fall campaign they can all say, "Been there, old news."

I am curious, however. Why would you go 25 pages deep and pick this one thread out? I thought this was the diseased thread, and I the diseased poster. It would seem that the last thing you'd want is for old vermin to reappear.

But since you've taken the time to resurrect this illbegotten thread from Hell, I might as well give you an update. If we look at this point in the race in 2004, we would see Kerry leading Bush by a rather substantial amount, so there's no change there. Of course, Kerry with 3 purple hearts and one bronze star vs a person who went AWOL for a year during the Vietnam War, seemed like a slam dunk with the veteran crowd. The stench of Abu Ghraib was still pretty fresh on everyone's mind as well.

So what changed from this point four years ago that altered the outcome entirely??

Well, we went through the party conventions afterwards. The Republicans won that contest hands' down. Flip-flop was so simple even a somnambulist could repeat it. Let's see what jingo-jango the PR boys over there can create this time. It must be simple, and it must be generic enough to apply to as many different situations as possible. Look for a vague reference to Obama's middle name. That is huge and the Republicans have yet to exploit it much. Look for major news stories to look for any possible reference to Saddam so they can say, "former Iraq President Hussein..." Any current or former "bad guy" that has any name even closely resembling "Hussein" will be brought to the fore.

We still haven't seen the Swiftboat Kids yet. They do have to wait until after the conventions or they would be branded with repeating "the same ol' stuff we heard before the conventions." Look for the cocaine one to be used only once or twice towards the end of the campaign. That's really all they'll need.

McCain just needs to stay within four points or so of Obama. The already have a form of poll tax and other voting restrictions in several states, so that will be a legal deterent this time. I'm sure that felonious felony llists will surface in many more states. There are still a lot of service men and women, so the ability to prove that someone is not living at a given residence is still a valid pursuit.

Check wth Greg Palast for the latest in voting restrictions for the poor and minority.

In any case, the race begins in earnest after the conventions. Don't look to see much narrowing until towards the end of September. Of course, if there is a new "attack" by terrorists on the US before then which pushes the US to attack Iran, then this whole thing becomes. Right now that doesn't look likely, but according to some pundits out there, "it would be better" for McCain if Osama would do just one last favor for his good friends in the neocon world. All they need is something that looks almost as bad as 9/11 but with a lot of "inconclusive, yet compelling" leads that point directly back to Tehran. Quite frankly, they don't need to go that for to get McCain in office, at which time he can identify plenty of reasons to attack Iran.